Pearce at the double against old team

CHARLOTTE Pearce came back to haunt her former club as Loughborough Lightning produced a strong running performance to earn a bonus-point away win against Firwood Waterloo.

Poor defence by the home side, who are still chasing their first win in the Premier 15s, allowed the visitors to run in five tries.

Pearce’s return to her former club – this time as a Lightning player – was rewarded with a pair of tries as the full-back capitalised on breaks in the home side’s defensive line and overlaps created by the visitors to punish her ex-teammates.

However, the scoreline did not reflect the true nature of the game with Waterloo able to threaten Loughborough’s try line on occasion, but they were unable to take full advantage of those chances and failed to register.

Pearce got the first two tries for Loughborough, helping them into a 12-0 lead after just 22 minutes.

They had a third before half-time, from Bethan Zeidler to move 17-0 ahead.

The bonus point followed in the second half, with Lizzie Adams crossing for an unconverted score, and they wrapped up a five-try success at the death with a score from a rolling maul.

That win was enough to take Lightning up to 37 points, level in the table with West Country duo Bristol and Gloucester-Hartpury after 13 rounds of games.